mbramble

Hmmmmmm. Just noticed the dates on these posts. I guess this board is dead.....

So, have disconnected Windows drive and am currently re-installing Mandriva on the second drive. Will see if I am able to boot into Linux when finished. And if so, if I am also able to just boot right into Mandriva without jockying with the BIOS each time. That would not go over well with the wife! Will post back with results.

I have been running only Mandriva for years on PCs that I put together from components ordered from various sources. Haven't bought a box since 1992. -- Until 2 days ago!! Just could not get a better deal buying individual components + shipping, etc. Anyway, it is loaded with Windows 8 on a 1TB drive. Until I am sure I can get 2011 running on it correctly, I am not interested in wiping out the Windoze just yet. So, I bought an extra 1TB drive and installed it, downloaded MD 2011 and burned it to DVD. Went thru all the gyrations in the BIOS to allow me to boot from DVD and installed 2011. Install went fine with no issues. Problem came when I went to reboot!! It would not boot into anything and the BIOS with UEFI (my first experience with this) just went into a 'Preparing to Correct Problems' loop that it never came out of. Disabled the UEFI and legacy loader complained there was not a bootable drive. I could choose and boot of the DVD all day but could get no further. Finally found that by disconnecting the new drive I could boot back into Windze... (Yea!) It would appear to me (and I could be completely wrong) that the Windows Boot Manager does not recognize the MBR partitioned 2nd drive and fails (or tries to fix it) because of it on bootup. And since the main drive is GPT, Mandriva install writing a boot record to it doesn't work. I am currently downloading GParted Live in hopes that I can partition the 2nd drive as GPT to see if I can leave it connected and still have Windows boot properly. But, even if that is the case, I still don't have Mandriva!! I'm thinking the other thing I can do is to disconnect the Windows drive, go about the Mandriva install on the 2nd drive and see if (using the BIOS Legacy (MBR?) boot feature) I can boot from the drive formatted by Mandriva install. If Mandriva works correctly, then I have no problem with slicking the Windows drive (or just leaving it disconnected). Any of this sound reasonable or am I chasing the wrong goose?? :) Thanks for any input!! Mike